Screaming Headlines

By Patricia Nell Warren, A&U Magazine. Posted June 13, 2000.

It isn't exactly a state secret that the U.S. is having a major epidemic of sexually transmitted disease. Reportedly syphilis, once almost eradicated, is back. Recent CDC figures for chlamydia, gonorrhea and herpes 2 infection among teens are alarming. Less than 10 percent of teens screened for STDs give their orientation as gay. Yet government and news media continue to obsess about gay sex. In view of CDC's decision to consider STDs and tuberculosis as co-factors of HIV infection, this old obsession is making for new screaming headlines. We are entering Stage 2 of 1980s AIDS hysteria.

In April, for instance, 51 cases of syphilis among L.A. County gay men made the Los Angeles Times. L.A.'s Channel 2, which loves to wring every ounce of drama out of drive-bys and hot pursuits on the freeways, did high drama about the public-health vans pulling up in West Hollywood and Silverlake to make testing available to gay men. From there, the gay drama reverberated around the world, as far away as India, where it was noted by the SATHI AIDS newsletter.

According to the Times, "Health officials in Los Angeles County report that a syphilis outbreak among gay men in the area has doubled to 51 cases in two weeks. Peter Kerndt, director of the county's sexually transmitted diseases program, noted that 28 of the 51 men have HIV, which is particularly worrisome because syphilis sores increase the risk of HIV transmission ... Last year, none of the 120 syphilis cases recorded in Los Angeles County were among gay men, suggesting that this year there has been a decline in safe sex practices among some gay men in the area."

The same month, the AP screamed another headliner: "A tuberculosis outbreak in the transgender communities of Baltimore and New York City may be spreading to other cities, the government said Thursday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed 26 active cases and 37 dormant cases of tuberculosis, most of them connected to members of the transgender community in the two cities. The government said 62 percent of the tuberculosis patients tested positive for HIV."

These stories come on the heels of earlier screamers from San Francisco, over 17 cases of syphilis that the San Francisco Dept. of Public Health insisted were linked to gay male chat rooms on the Internet. Months later, statements by SFDPH, claiming that gay male sex practices are still driving the AIDS epidemic, are still reverberating nationwide.

I wonder why news media aren't screaming just as loudly about rising HIV infection among young heterosexual people. According to the CDC, "HIV infection and AIDS are now the sixth leading cause of death among young persons aged 15 to 24 years."

And where are the screaming headlines on other STDs among the nation's teens? According to the CDC website: "Each year, approximately three million cases of sexually transmitted diseases occur among teenagers."

Let's look at chlamydia. This STD is caused by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis, and can be spread even by simple skin or body contact. Says CDC grimly on their website: "Chlamydia is the most frequently reported infectious disease in the United States. From 1984 through 1997, reported rates of chlamydia increased from 3.2 to 207.0 cases per 100,000 population. Based on reports to CDC provided by states that collect age-specific data, teenage girls have the highest rates of chlamydial infection." One of every 10 girls screened were chlamydia+.

The stark CDC report goes on: "Because approximately 75 percent of women and 50 percent of men have no symptoms, most people infected with chlamydia are not aware of their infections. Untreated, chlamydia can cause severe, costly reproductive and other health problems. Up to 40 percent of women with untreated chlamydia will develop PID [pelvic inflammatory disease]. Of those with PID, 20 percent will become infertile; 18 percent will experience debilitating, chronic pelvic pain; and 9 percent will have a life-threatening tubal pregnancy. Tubal pregnancy is the leading cause of first-trimester, pregnancy-related deaths in American women."

In other words, hundreds of thousands of young women will not be having children because of chlamydia -- making zero population growth more of a reality than "Earth First" worries ever did.

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